


Landslide

by bicycles



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, F/M, That Funeral Home Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:22:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bicycles/pseuds/bicycles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Alternative Universe - In which season 5 didn't happen.] Beth and Daryl spend their first Christmas together at the funeral home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Landslide

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [~bethylsecretsanta](http://bethylsecretsanta.tumblr.com/). It kind of got really schmoopy towards the end.

She watched from the door as he went through their supplies. Peanut butter, jelly, marshmallow fluff, pork rinds. She could see the jars from here, each a reminder of a past that they seemed to have lost long ago. It was too much for her. But as she turned away, she felt the floorboards creak under the step. 

"Should be resting." 

She felt him at her side, a hesitant hand at her hip. Like, he wanted to carry her again, but didn't know if she'd allow it. She took his hand and leaned into it for support. "I wanted to see what you were doing." 

"Just checking supplies." Even without looking at him, she thought his eyes could see through her facade, could see the pain that her ankle still caused her with each step, each word, each strained attempt to remain standing. "C'mon…" 

There was no hesitation now. He grabbed her and carried her into the viewing room. It wasn't a large room. It probably didn't need to be. Just enough space for a few rows of chairs, an open casket, and a piano. He set her down in the casket and then straightened the pillows, so that she could prop her ankle up. "Should do it. Now, stay off your feet…"

"Daryl…" 

He'd been about to leave when she reached out for him. Her hand didn't quite reach his, and he didn't take it, anyway. He simply paused, and she could read the uncertainty etched across his face. 

"Do you think we could stay here?" 

\-- -- --

The funeral home was like a home in every way that counted. They had their meals, first of peanut butter and jelly, later of roasted squirrels and whatever they could find, in the kitchen. They kept the weapons that they found with the corpses in the basement, and they practiced with them in the cemetery. And in the evenings, she played the piano while he dozed in the coffin. It was his bed first; she didn't know at what point they'd started to share it, but it was always his first.

There was a dog, too. A mangy, one-eyed rascal who foraged outside the funeral home. She'd seen him once, when they were practicing with the bow, and then again, when they had been coming back from hunting. He wasn't their dog, necessarily, but he was in every way that counted.

She called him Baxter. 

\--

They lost count of the days, of the seasons, of time itself. None of it mattered, really. There was no sign of the funeral home's original inhabitants, or any sign of the prison group. It was only them, and Baxter, and the changing weather that marked the passage of time. 

One day, close to what she thought must be Christmas time, it started to snow. The flakes were large enough to catch on her tongue, and they didn't stick to anything, except her hair. As she ducked inside the funeral home, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, tiny flakes of snow sticking up all over her head. She smiled at herself, suddenly reminded of all those times as a child that she and Maggie had tried to catch snowflakes with their eyelashes. 

She had gone out to check the traps, but there had been nothing. Only a handful of wild blackberries, latecomers for the season, that grew along the edge of the woods. She'd scooped them up into a bag, which she was carrying now under her arm. 

"Daryl?" she called. 

But there was no response, and as she went from room to room, she saw no signs of him. That wasn't unusual, though. Sometimes, she and Daryl hunted together; sometimes, he preferred to go out alone. She'd grown used to his extended absences, just as she'd grown used to the man who'd made this place a second (third, if she counted the prison) home. 

Beth had been sitting in the kitchen for what seemed a long time, long enough for the last rays of the December sun to sink below the horizon, when she heard a banging of pots and pans. It was their makeshift alarm system, set to signal if anything got a little too close to the home. She got to her feet almost instantly, knife in her hand. And as she approached, she watched the front door slam open. She'd forgotten to barricade it earlier, and now she strained her ears for the familiar shuffle of the dead. But there was nothing, only a faint shuffling, and a scraping of boots, and then Daryl stumbling through the open door. 

"Daryl?" 

There was blood on his hands, all over them, and his face was pale. She rushed to his side. "What happened?" 

"Got on the wrong side of a Christmas tree." He leaned against her, breathing hard. "Fell into what must have been a damn foothold trap. I'm alright. It just got my boot. Go on…" He nodded towards the porch. "Let me know what you think."

But all she could see were the cuts and scrapes on his hands, the labored breathing, the paleness to his complexion. "You're an idiot." She had his hands in her hands, and she could feel his pulse racing against hers. She wanted to lean up just a little bit, just enough to kiss him, but she didn't. "I can't believe you nearly got yourself killed over a damn tree."

She knew that was an exaggeration. He was a little damaged, not dead. And none of it really explained why her heart was racing, or why she was terrified. What if he'd never come back? And wasn't that a stupid thought? Daryl knew his way around the woods better than anyone. 

"Another trap?" she repeated, curiosity getting the better of her.

"You can blame that damn dog. Me and him… Well, I didn't see it before it was too late." There was an amused smile playing at the edge of his lips. "Whoever used to live here sure got the place done up right." 

"Yea." She thought she should have said something else, except she didn't. She was too busy looking at him, too busy trying to figure out what to do with that slowly expanding feeling in her chest. Like, this was something that needed to be figured out, and that she didn't quite want to figure out yet. "So, a Christmas tree?"

She didn't want to let him go, but he seemed to be okay now. Maybe a little bit worn from his fight with a trap, and a tree, and if he was limping a little as he led her out onto the porch, she decided not to say anything. The tree took up a good portion of the front steps and was probably five or six feet tall. She didn't know how he'd managed to drag it all the way over here, or where he'd even found it. 

"It's perfect." 

"Yea?"

She looked up at him and smiled. "Yea," she said, squeezing his hand. 

\--

She helped him into the coffin, and then dragged the tree into the same room. They didn't have a tree stand, or lights, or the little ornaments that were a part of her Christmas memories. But they had a tree, and as she sat in the coffin next to him, looking at the tree leaned up against the wall, she couldn't help but smile. 

"I could probably rig a stand," he said, leaning against her. 

"I like it where it is." 

"Yea."

He smelled of pine sap, and everything that seemed to remind her of comfort, safety, home. She buried her face into his shoulder, breathing him in. He moved his arm a little and pulled her in close, close enough to kiss her hair, and then close enough to tilt her head upwards. Her heart was beating fast in her ears as his chapped lips met hers. 

And it was slow and sweet and tasted like day old cigarettes. 

They sat like that, hands in his hair, hands in her heart. Like, a gap had opened between them where no physical space remained, and now she just had to go ahead and say something. 

"It's probably filled with spiders." 

"Hm?" His hand was on her knee.

"The tree's probably got … spiders." She let go, looking at him. "They like to build nests in the old pines." 

"Don't need to worry about no spiders."

And as he looked at her, she brushed his hair out of his eyes and kissed him. It was like she wanted to pour all of herself into him, for that brief moment that their lips met, and wasn't that a damn cliché? Like, he had his hands inside her heart, and could somehow pull her closer to him without saying anything, closer until no space remained between them. She pushed him up against the back of the coffin and crawled into his lap, one hand on his hip. The other interlocked with his, soft fingers against his callused ones. 

She felt every scrape, every scar that was shared between them. Each accidental brush of skin against skin made her heart beat faster, in time with his own racing pulse. And as she kissed him, she seemed to take a little bit more of him into her, until that gap between them seemed like it had never been, and maybe that was what love was. Maybe love wasn't what happened when two people became one. It wasn't about being soulmates, or being a damn romance novel, or whatever bullshit people spun on TV. 

Love was just two people who traveled the same long road together. 

She felt him shift underneath her, and she wrapped her legs around his hips. Her hands were on his shoulders, his on her back. And God, he looked good underneath her, his hair hanging in his eyes, his breathing running ragged against her chest. She swallowed, suddenly aware of how her body fit against his, and how he seemed to press up against her just right. 

It was clumsy and awkward and just about twenty shades of wrong, until she leaned a little bit forward. And there it was. The soft stutter of his breath against her ear as she pushed her body against his, and that _God, Beth,_ barely spoken. And even through the layers of clothing, she thought she could feel every inch of him, and every inch of her against him. But it wasn't enough. Her lips were on his again, hungrier than before, pulling him against her, and her hands were at his zipper, her hands were on him.

And then his hand was on her hand, and they were pulling each other apart, even as they held each other together. And when they came down, they were lying together in the coffin, her eyes fixed on the lonely Christmas tree. It was probably filled with spiders, she thought. And they didn't have any way to water it, which meant the needles would fall over the carpet. And even if they did, they couldn't waste water on such an extravagance.

But none of that mattered. She held his hand in hers, close to her heart, listening to how his steady breathing filled the silence.

And she wanted to say, _I'm glad you're here with me_.

And she wanted to say, _I love you_.

But she didn't.

\--

When she woke, she was alone. The coffin was empty, and the viewing room, too. Only the Christmas tree remained, a distant vigil over her sleep. She crawled from their makeshift bed, shoving her feet into her boots, and followed the distant sounds of banging out onto the front porch. Daryl was there with a makeshift axe and a few wooden chairs, and Baxter was at his side, occasionally yipping as Daryl worked. 

She leaned against the doorframe, watching the two of them. "What are you doing?"

He looked up at her, a slight smile at the edge of his lips. "I told you I could rig us a tree stand. Pretty sure my old man did this when he got tired of looking for the other ones."

She smiled, too. "Is that so?"

"Yea." He turned back to his pile of broken up chairs that were now just bits of wood and nails. "You think you could give us a hand? Baxter's not so good with the opposable thumbs."

"I might be able to give it a try."

\--

The tree stand wasn't perfect, but somehow it worked. She didn't believe it as she walked around the tree for the third time. It was standing of its own accord, held together with a few pieces of wooden chairs and worn out nails. And then there were the giant red bows that she'd found in the attic. There had been candles, too, but they had agreed that they needed those for light. And they had agreed, too, that the tree was more than enough on its own. 

When she found the spider on the ceiling, she just looked up at it and smiled. 

And he took her hand into his, and said, "Merry Christmas, Beth." 

And it felt like he was saying, _I love you, too_. 


End file.
